'Fall' explores how playwright Arthur Miller ignored son with Down syndrome

By R. Scott Reedy, Correspondent

Thursday

May 17, 2018 at 1:00 AM

With plays like “Death of a Salesman,” “All My Sons,” “A View from the Bridge” and “The Crucible,” Arthur Miller became one of the most successful and respected - even revered—playwrights of the 20th century.

Miller’s writing vividly encapsulated the darker side of the American Dream and its impact on the structure of the American family, often through the prism of fathers and sons.

His brilliantly insightful chronicling of the common man, which won him Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize, along with his refusal to name names to the House Un-American Activities Committee - not to mention his five-year marriage to Marilyn Monroe - earned Miller icon status.

But a 2007 article in Vanity Fair magazine, written by Suzanna Andrews and published two years after Miller’s death at age 89, pulled back the curtain on the high-minded playwright’s private life. It revealed that he and his third wife, photographer Inge Morath, who predeceased him in 2002, had a son, Daniel, born in 1966 with Down syndrome, whom they never publicly acknowledged.

Former New York Times reporter-turned playwright Bernard Weinraub (“The Accomplices,” “Above the Fold”) translates the story for the stage in “Fall.” The play is being given its world premiere by the Huntington Theatre Company beginning May 18 at the Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts.

“The Vanity Fair piece was very provocative because the information in it was new. It stuck with me and about a year later, I went on the internet to see if I could find out more information,” explained Weinraub recently by telephone from Boston.

“It was the 1960s and almost every doctor at the time said, ‘You have to put these people away.’ Some people even denied their existence. They were called ‘disposable’ - the idea being that you should give them away, quickly get pregnant again, and have another child.

“Miller was a very public person, of course, but he was still able to almost completely delete Daniel from his life and keep him a secret,” said Weinraub. “There was a whole conspiracy of silence around Daniel.”

Reportedly against his wife’s wishes, Miller institutionalized Daniel, first in New York City when he was a baby, and later at the state-run Southbury Training School in Connecticut.

“I knew Arthur Miller like everyone else. I read him in college and beyond. I came along at a time when Miller and Tennessee Williams were the two greatest American playwrights. I loved ‘All My Sons’ and ‘Death of a Salesman.’

“He is not demonized in this play. I want people to take away a better understanding of this great artist and (be) able to reconcile his plays with the truth of his life,” said Weinraub.

While Miller remained in the public eye throughout his long life, he never really matched his early success, according to Weinraub.

“He wrote most of his formidable plays by the age of 45. For the next 50 years, his career was really in the shadows. He continued to write new plays, but they would close on Broadway after maybe 12 or 13 performances. The only exception was ‘The Price’ in 1968.”

Miller’s high-profile romantic relationship with movie star Monroe didn’t help. The two were married on June 29, 1955. Miller wrote what would be Monroe’s last completed film, “The Misfits.” It was released in 1961, the year the couple divorced and the year before she died.

“He stopped writing for about seven years because, he said, ‘Marilyn was a full-time job.’ They had a rocky marriage and a messy divorce. When he married Inge Morath in 1962, he began writing again. Inge was the reverse of Marilyn. She was not needy at all.”

In 1964, Miller’s “After the Fall,” a semi-autobiographical look at his marriage to Monroe, was produced at New York’s ANTA Washington Square Theatre, the inaugural production of what was then the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center.

“He was welcomed back to the New York stage by the New York Times, but that was followed by a flood of devastating notices from theater critics like Robert Brustein, John Simon and Eric Bentley. There was a real antipathy to him as a moralist,” explained Weinraub.

Weinraub, 80, said he understands why some people disliked Miller.

“Arthur Miller lectured us. He was a lecturer and the intellectual critics resented him for that.”

A critical failure, “After the Fall” closed after 208 performances on Broadway.

“The failure of ‘After the Fall,’ coupled with Daniel being born with Down syndrome two years later, almost destroyed Arthur Miller. As he saw it, he lost many good writing years to Marilyn. Daniel would have taken the rest of his life,” according to Weinraub.

Instead, Miller all but erased his fourth child. There is no mention of him in the writer’s 1987 autobiography, “Timebends: A Life.” And most major obituaries listed Miller as having only three children - a daughter, Jane, and a son, Robert, with first wife Mary Slattery, and a second daughter, Rebecca, with Morath. Miller did, however, put Daniel in his will.

While Morath is said to have visited Daniel most Sundays, father and son may have seen one another only a few times over the years, according to Weinraub. Daniel, now 52, was released some years ago from Southbury, long controversial for its allegedly poor conditions. He continues to live in Connecticut.

“Daniel works, he pays taxes, and he votes. Everyone who knows him describes him as remarkable. He has severe speech problems, though, which wouldn’t be the case if he had received proper speech training in his teen years,” said Weinraub.

The writer believes that never speaking about Daniel caused Miller his own problems.

“He couldn’t grapple with the burden of Daniel. It weighed on him forever. It’s really a tragic story.

“I think Arthur Miller had all sorts of second thoughts. I have to believe he thought more than once, ‘What have I missed in not knowing my son? This could have been my greatest play.’”

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Newton actor stars as Daniel Miller

In “Fall,” the role of Arthur Miller's son Daniel is being played by Brookline native Nolan James Tierce, an actor with Down syndrome.

A Newton resident and graduate of Newton South High School, Tierce has also studied at MassBay Community College in Wellesley Hills. He previously appeared on stage in the Newton Country Players production of “Harvey.”

His feature film credits include “Central Intelligence,” “Ghostbusters: Answer the Call,” “Brute Sanity,” and “Stronger.”

Under the direction of Huntington Theatre Company Artistic Director Peter DuBois, the cast of “Fall” also includes Josh Stamberg as Arthur Miller, Joanne Kelly as Inge Morath, Joanna Glushak as Dr. Wise, and John Hickok as Robert Whitehead.